Credit Cards are Banished from My Kingdom

The Credit Cards

Today my credit card and car payments cleared. I have officially paid off all of my credit cards and I closed 2 of the accounts. I am keeping one for emergencies. It has a $79 annual fee, but I just got it 2 months ago. I'm hoping (fingers are crossed) that my usage and payment history will be so great for the next 10 months that they will waive my annual fee and give me a huge credit line increase. Right now my limit is only $300.

The Car

My car note is now below $14k. Every month, beginning next month I will make my regular $308.68 payment. I will also make an additional $521 payment. Then I will try to find other misc. money to send as well. Whatever is left in my gas, misc. and allowance funds at the end of the month will go to pay my car off as early as possible.

I would like to pay it off at the end of this year, but that's nearly impossible unless I get a second job. I'm looking for one now and I'm going to pray about it.

The Student Loans

I am not going to pay these until my car is paid off. Hopefully (fingers crossed again) that will be in 2009.

My Mom

My mom bought me a car a few years ago. It was a lemon from the start. I had to spend tons of money on it and I kept it until I just couldn't deal with the uncertainty anymore. When I got a new job - I purchased my first new car and I did it on my own. Of course my interest rate is sky high. Okay, back to original story. When I got my new car I gave the old car to my brother. It had a really bad oil leak and he needed to fix it before he could get the smog check. Long story short the tags expired and he parked the car on the street one day and it got impounded.

So although my mom hasn't asked me to pay her back - I want to. I feel bad that it got impounded. She told me to sell it to my brother so that he would appreciate it more, but I wanted to help him out. I figured since he's good with cars that he would have the oil leak fixed in no time. He could never do it for me because he was working so much at the time and tired all the time.

I don't have a plan yet for paying her the $1270, but it's on my list of goals for 2008. When I get my second job I will put some aside from each check for her. If something happens and I can't get a second job then I won't send the extra $521 to my car the last couple of months this year and I'll pay her back before 2009 rings in.